You are not your brain. You might say the brain is the hardware (like a computer or phone) and your mind is the software (such as the apps that run on the computer or phone). The mind tells the brain what to do. However, the brain can become injured and unable to complete the task. But, if encouraged to do so, the brain can re-wire itself, or said another way, find a new path to transmit the commands to accomplish the task.

Interestingly, this was proven for the first time in science by a man named Taub. He was not trained in neuroscience, but in psychology, so he had no clue that this would buck the establishment! His experiment and observances went against the tradition of the previous 100 years. His findings were greeted by the neuroscientific community with anger and incredulity! It took over 30 years for this thought to come more to mainstream thinking.

In the late 1960’s, Taub performed surgery cutting a nerve to disengage sensation in one of a monkey’s arms. Following the surgery, the monkeys would just allow that limb to fall loosely and never use it again. However, when both arms’ nerves were severed, within days, they began using both limbs, almost as if nothing had happened.

This research is now the basis for re-training people following a stroke, by disengaging the good side, an arm, for example, and requiring the “paralyzed” arm to attempt to perform the task. Over several months, the damaged arm begins to respond, as the brain re-wires itself to send communications through alternative pathways.

Things formally thought impossible for the body-mind to accomplish following an injury are now possible by encouraging the brain to re-wire.

“Choice is generated by the mind and it changes the brain” Sharon Begley states in the epilogue of “The Mind and the Brain” where she and Jeffrey Schwartz tell the stories of the discoveries of the new found powers of the mind-brain connection. She goes on to say, ”The power of attention, and thus the power of the mind, reshapes neural circuitry and cortical maps….We now have scientific basis for asserting that the exercise of the will, the effort of attention, can systematically change the way the brain works.”

The question becomes, “what does your mind attend to”? Does it attend to negative thought patterns, bad habits, or the belief in problems that need to be solved? OR another alternative might be to attend to upward spiraling thoughts and emotions. This is what the Art of Ascension is about. Innocently using tools that retrain the mind to experience life in a new way. This new choice can create endless new possibilities.

​Our choices do matter, what choice to rewire your brain will you make after reading this?